The Origin of Life Patterns: In the Natural Inclusion of Space in Flux PDF
Preview The Origin of Life Patterns: In the Natural Inclusion of Space in Flux
SPRINGER BRIEFS IN PSYCHOLOGY PSYCHOLOGY AND CULTURAL DEVELOPMENTAL SCIENCE Alan Rayner The Origin of Life Patterns In the Natural Inclusion of Space in Flux 123 SpringerBriefs in Psychology Psychology and Cultural Developmental Science Series editors Giuseppina Marsico, University of Salerno, Salerno, Italy; Centre for Cultural Psychology, Aalborg University, Aalborg Denmark Jaan Valsiner, Centre for Cultural Psychology, Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark SpringerBriefs in Psychology and Cultural Developmental Science will be an extension and topical completion of IPBS: Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science Journal (Springer, chief editor: Jaan Vasiner) expanding some relevant topics in the form of single (or multiple) authored book. The Series will haveaclearlydefinedinternationalandinterdisciplinaryfocushostingworksonthe interconnection between Cultural Psychology and other Developmental Sciences (biology, sociology, anthropology, etc). The Series aims at integrating knowledge frommanyfieldsinasynthesisofgeneralscienceofCulturalPsychologyasanew science of the human being. The Series will include books that offer a perspective on the current state of developmental science, addressing contemporary enactments and reflecting on theoretical and empirical directions and providing, also, constructive insights into future pathways. Featuring compact volumes of 100 to 115 pages, each Brief in the Series is meant to provide a clear, visible, and multi-sided recognition of the theoretical efforts of scholars around the world. Both solicited and unsolicited proposals are considered for publication in this series. All proposals will be subject to peer review by external referees. More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/15388 Alan Rayner The Origin of Life Patterns In the Natural Inclusion of Space in Flux 123 AlanRayner BathBio*Art Bathford, BathandNorth EastSomerset UK ISSN 2192-8363 ISSN 2192-8371 (electronic) SpringerBriefs inPsychology ISBN978-3-319-54605-6 ISBN978-3-319-54606-3 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-54606-3 LibraryofCongressControlNumber:2017932630 ©TheAuthor(s)2017 Thisworkissubjecttocopyright.AllrightsarereservedbythePublisher,whetherthewholeorpart of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission orinformationstorageandretrieval,electronicadaptation,computersoftware,orbysimilarordissimilar methodologynowknownorhereafterdeveloped. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publicationdoesnotimply,evenintheabsenceofaspecificstatement,thatsuchnamesareexemptfrom therelevantprotectivelawsandregulationsandthereforefreeforgeneraluse. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authorsortheeditorsgiveawarranty,expressorimplied,withrespecttothematerialcontainedhereinor for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictionalclaimsinpublishedmapsandinstitutionalaffiliations. Printedonacid-freepaper ThisSpringerimprintispublishedbySpringerNature TheregisteredcompanyisSpringerInternationalPublishingAG Theregisteredcompanyaddressis:Gewerbestrasse11,6330Cham,Switzerland What May Not Be Obvious Every body is a cavity at heart Every figure reconfigures both in science and in art Everyfaceisinterfacingfromnobottomtono top Every faith is interfaith that cannot tell us where to stop Every lining opens inwards as it brings its inside out Every curtain closes outwards to conceal its inner doubt Every story ends in opening from some future into past Every glory is the story of finding first in last Every aching is the making of another role for play Every taking is the slaking of another’s thirst to stay Every tiding’s no confiding with-out the trust to tell Every siding is no hiding from the fear of utter Hell Every flowing is the ebbing of another’s world within Every glowing is the lighting of the darkness in the spin Every heartbeat is the murmur in the core of inner space Every drumbeat is the echo of the dance within each place Every silence is the gathering of the storm that is to come When Love comes to Life Series Editor Preface Spaces In-Between: The Arena for Development This book The Origin of Life Patterns—In the Natural Inclusion of Space in Flux, writtenbyAlanRayner,inauguratesthenewSpringerBriefsseriesPsychologyand CulturalDevelopmentalSciences.Asthefirstborn,thisbookhastoaccomplishthe task of drawing the coordinates for our intellectual enterprise, outlining the theo- retical basis and the methodological approach within which a vivid debate at the intersection of cultural psychology and other developmental sciences (biology, sociology,philosophy,anthropology,education,etc.)willbepromoted.Theaimof thisseriesistocreatefertilegroundthatintegratesknowledgefrommanyfieldsinto a new synthesis—a general science of cultural psychology that deals with the highest psychological functions of human beings (Valsiner et al. 2016). Much of contemporarydevelopmentalsciencehasnaturalliaisonswithculturalpsychology. The SpringerBriefs series creates a forum of scholarly interchanges for that inter- disciplinary synthesis. Thisbookisaprogrammaticstatementfocusingonsomeaspectsofthecomplex phenomenon of becoming human in the social and natural world around us. We havealreadyhadthefortunetobenefitfromtheintellectualworkofAlanRaynerin 2011, when, on the pages of the Springer journal IPBS: Integrative Psychological andBehavioralScience(ofwhich,thisseriesisalsoatopicalextension),appeareda quite unique theoretical elaboration of the notion of inclusionality and the role of the ‘space in-between’ and borders in developmental processes (Marsico 2011; Rayner2011).However,muchofthatspaceremainedunchartedbackthen—andis accomplished now in the present book. Rayner’s new scientific biological paradigm, here extensively developed, is based on the shift from an abstract passive conceptualization of space as ‘void background’ to a natural, relational view of space as a ‘receptive omnipresence.’ This model greatly contributed to our intellectual attempt to elaborate the general vii viii SeriesEditorPreface notion of the liminality of the human condition. Let us highlight a part from Rayner’s conclusion which we consider to be revolutionary for our contemporary social sciences: Abstract thinking removes the middle ground of self-identity as a dynamic inclusion of neighbourhood.Thisexplainswhytwoincompatible kindsofabstractlogichavebeenat odds with one another for millennia. ‘Two-value logic’ (also known as the Law of the Excluded Middle) straightforwardly regards one or other of the two mutually exclusive alternatives (bounded or unbounded) to be ‘true’ and the other as ‘false’. Dialectic logic holdsbothalternativestobeequallytrue,whichresultsinparadox.Sincethereisnowayto resolve this paradox naturally, by allowing boundaries to fluidize and space to be con- tinuous,thebrutalityofoneandthesoftnessoftheotherareheldin‘livingcontradiction’ (p.105,emphasisadded) This ‘living contradiction’ of the two systems of logics has been around for more than two centuries in contemporary European thought, and the ‘paradox’ of the dialectic still hinders our view of the many ‘spaces in between’ which Rayner so beautifully and artistically demonstrates in this book on the basis of phenomena fromnature,andamplyillustrates byhis ownpaintings.Rayner’sisanewversion of Naturphilosophie—attempted two centuries after its earlier romantic versions wereattempted(andabandoned).Wehopethatthereadersofthisbookwillpickup the challenge—to give explicit form to the ‘fluid and continuous’ boundaries that are prominent innature and inthe human psyche. Advancement ofnewmodels of developmental mereotopology could be one of the solutions (Marsico 2011). Development of the philosophical principles of ‘double negation’ (elaborated by Engelsted 2017) could be another. It is nice to encounter humble authors in our editorial efforts. Alan Rayner did not even realize how central his evolutionary standpoint has been for the psycho- logicalinvestigationoverthepastseveralyears. Fromhis inspiringwork,somany questionsaboutthemutualadaptationbetweenthespaceandthelivingsystemfrom a cultural psychology perspective have been raised. That is why this book series, which is meant to be interdisciplinary in its nature, could not have any other inauguralbookthanTheOriginofLifePatterns—IntheNaturalInclusionofSpace in Flux. AlanRaynerisalsoabrilliantexampleofhowintellectualworkisanunceasing enterprise. Over the last months during the preparation of his manuscript, we had intensecorrespondencethatwasofgreathelpinunderstandingthetheoreticalroots and the methodological options, as well as the integration of science, psychology and arts that the author provides into the volume. It is always fascinating to see a brilliant mind at work! In one of his recent messages, Alan Rayner incisively defined thecentral themeofthis bookwhichseemstobethecompendium ofwhat he has been elaborating over decades. It has to do with what The Nature is, and then, what is the quintessential aspect of Human Nature. At the core of Rayner’s argumentation there is the idea that in our contemporary scientific, educational, theologicalandgovernmentalstructures,thepredominanceofafragmentedwayof thinking that separates what is material from what is immaterial, and that which is SeriesEditorPreface ix to be considered the ‘subjective’ and the ‘objective’ as mutually exclusive, or collapsedoneintoanother,makeitimpossibletounderstandthecomplexityofthe human nature in a manner that preserves the wholes while studying carefully their parts.Understandingemerging,developingandself-maintainingwholesisthetask of new science. It is this that the current rapidly developing perspectives, in what are subsumed under ‘Cultural Psychologies’ (Valsiner 2014), are oriented to do: Keep the focus onthewholeswhilerecognizingthehighvariabilityoftheirconstituentparts.Both biological and social sciences operate on phenomena that are characterized by variability amplification, as pointed out by Magoroh Maruyama in his crucial introduction of the notion of ‘second cybernetics’ more than a half century ago (Maruyama 1963). Biological and social systems—open in their relationships with the environment—constantly produce innovation. New forms come into being, which are transformed into still newer forms—while maintaining generative con- tinuity with thepast. Thisleads toanumberofdeepchanges intheways inwhich scientists need tothinkabout thenaturaland social orders—moving from thinking intermsofcausalitytothatintermsofcatalysis(CabellandValsiner2014),andto the corresponding abandonment of thinking in terms of ‘independent’ and ‘de- pendent’ variables (Valsiner and Brinkmann 2016). AlanRayner’sbookwillsurelyfosterreflectiononwhat‘OurTrueNature’is— guiding our attention to the way in which any living system is constantly in dia- logue with its natural neighbourhood, on the basis of an interdependent and co-evolutionary process involving both the context and the organism. We are sure that The Origin of Life Patterns—In the Natural Inclusion of Space in Flux will haveabeneficialeffectonthosewhoaretryingtoovercomethetraditionalborders between basic sciences and humanities (Geistewissenchaften). Our ways of knowingaresimilaracrosstheartificialdivideofthetwokindsofsciences,created in the nineteenth century. It is time to restore the understanding of that similarity. Aalborg, Denmark Giuseppina Marsico January 2017 Jaan Valsiner References Cabell,K.R.,&Valsiner,J.(Eds.).(2014).Thecatalyzingmind.NewYork:Springer. Engelsted,N.(2017).CatchingupwithAristotle.Ajourneyinquestforgeneralpsychology.New York:Springer. Marsico,G.(2011).The“Non-cuttable”spaceinbetween:Context,boundariesandtheirnatural fluidity. IPBS: Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science, 45(2), 185–193. doi:10. 1007/s12124-011-9164-9 Maruyama, M. (1963). The second cybernetics: Deviation-amplifying mutual causal processes. AmericanScientist,51,164–179. Rayner,A.D.(2011).Spacecannotbecut:Whyself-identitynaturallyincludesneighbourhood. IntegrativePsychologicalandBehaviouralScience,45(2),161–184.
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